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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258215">How does someone become a killjoy, anyway?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkpunkmetal/pseuds/valvelocityhateclub'>valvelocityhateclub (pinkpunkmetal)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(this is for party &amp; ghoul but its mild shippy stuff dw), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Emetophobia, Eye Trauma, Found Family, Gen, Getting Together, Gore, M/M, Nonbinary Party Poison (Danger Days), The Fabulous Killjoys (Danger Days) Are Not MCR</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:55:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,046</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258215</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkpunkmetal/pseuds/valvelocityhateclub</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They told you "you can be anything you want" but you didn't realize it would cost you so much.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fun Ghoul &amp; Jet Star &amp; Kobra Kid &amp; Party Poison (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul/Party Poison (Danger Days)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How does someone become a killjoy, anyway?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is not as angsty as the tags make it out to be, i promise, there's a lot more to it, i just tagged everything that could potentially trigger/squick someone (but this fic does still deal with that: a lot of blood, and death, and dead bodies, and all of the canon violence stuff, so beware)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How does someone become a killjoy, anyway? </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re barely fifteen years of age, dragging your brother through miles and miles of sand to get to safety - a safety you aren’t even sure exists, you were told that rebels, what the city called them, couldn’t survive here, but you never believed it - because you fucked up, and you fucked up bad, and the city isn’t a safe place for you anymore, and your brother is shaking, clinging to you for dear life, and the pills you didn’t take - your never liked them anyway - feel heavy in the pockets of your gray clothes; and your mouth is full of sand and your knees weak, but you keep going, on and on, your legs barely holding you up, but you keep walking. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re ten, and small, and scared of the desert - despite it being everything you’ve ever known, and despite the fact that you always considered it home - and you’re hanging out with the wrong crews - with the “grown ups” - because you have nowhere else to be and they make you feel powerful, they dye your hair black - jet black, your favorite color - and put you in three-sizes-too-big brown and yellow clothes, now you’re a killjoy, they say, but the gun strapped at your hip is too big for your hands and its green is too bright. You kill a man at ten years old, and no one bats an eyes. Now, you’re a killjoy.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy from your birth, instead? Do you become a killjoy when you’re born from killjoy parents, and you’re raised on neon and rock and roll and crazy clothes and fast cars, and you grow up fast, faster than any “normal” child in the city is supposed to, and suddenly you’re sixteen, in your first clap, the blue gun you’re given smooth and shiny and powerful in your hands and you’re free, fighting back to back with your sisters and brothers - your crew - your sweat slicked curly hair falling in your face, and you’re on top of the world. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re fifteen, and you’re alone, the weight of the guilt of leaving your crew almost too much on your back, and you find yourself running alone, and your hair is still jet black, just like your first crew wanted, and you’re a monster, you’re a monster with nowhere to go and no one to help you, again, and the desert is still scary to you, the warmth of the day too much and the darkness and the unknown of the night too frightening. You’re a monster, you remind yourself over and over again. You become Fun Ghoul, and your raygun is still too big and heavy, still on your left hip, but you’re someone now, and it - or anyone or anything else - can’t take it away from you. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re lying in the sand, playing dead, covered in blood that isn’t your own and you don’t know if your crew mate is even alive anymore, and you lie next to her until night falls and you were on top of the world, but killjoys can’t always win, can they? None of your crew mates - your family - are breathing, and you pray. You pray to The Witch, you pray as you bury their bodies in the sand and pray again and again, and you don’t know if you’re Jet Star anymore, as you leave their masks - and the piece of your soul that dies with them - into one the mailboxes in zone four, your hands still stained with your best friend’s blood and you pray and you grieve and from that point on you run alone.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you wake up in a place you don’t know, your brother is barely awake and still shaking because of the fucking pills he didn’t take next to you and your mouth is still full of sand and your head is pounding and you can’t even remember what happened anymore, and oh, you’re awake, a person that looks your age says, and you look at them,they’re wearing a slightly too big shirt with the word noise written in bold big black letters on it - a rebel - and you smile slightly, you’re one of them, now. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you truly see the desert for the first time, your brother next to you, and you bask in the hot sun and you feel at home, much more than you did when you were in the city, and you’re not used to this, you had never felt the sand and the sun and you had never seen light this bright and are you okay, kid? The rebel asks - and you had never liked being called a kid but it felt right in the moment - and you nod, and in that moment you become a rebel too, even though you still shake and you feel as if your insides are tearing themselves apart. You hold your brother’s hand, we made it.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re sixteen, a bottle of bright hair dye in your hands, your brother sitting next to you on what used to be the bathroom of the empty diner you both call home, and your hands are stained red, and you’re not a pill-addicted fuck up anymore, you’re poison - bright and alive and infectious, almost, and you become Party Poison, and you smile, because you’re finally you and no one can take it from you anymore, motherfucker, your brother reminds you and you hug him, leaving red hand prints on his shirt, but he forgives you anyway, and he smiles too.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re alone, and lost, and you find yourself around a fire with someone you don’t know, because they offered you a seat, and you say yes, because - as always, a voice in your head mocks - you don’t have anywhere else to be and anyone else to trust but yourself, and you two share a can of power pup, and you talk, and maybe you share a little too much, and you learn his name - Jet Star - and then you realize that you might not have to run alone for much longer. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you get your first gun, when you steal it from a still warm corpse, and it’s white, and untouched, lifeless, almost, and you try not to think about the fact that it belonged to someone once, and you take your kid brother’s hand again. You had never seen so much violence before. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself fighting back to back with your brother for the first time - an audition, Show Pony had called it - without any other rebels, red gun in hand - your brother had hand painted it for you - and you kill a man for the first time, a draculoid, and you feel yourself die a little as their mask comes off and you see someone vaguely resembling yourself under it and you feel sick to your stomach because you have blood on your hands, there’s no coming back now, and that night you find yourself clinging to your brother once again, shaking and crying and throwing up, the grief for someone you don’t know tearing you apart piece by piece - you know how draculoids work, Show Pony had explained it to you, and you know that that person could’ve been a killjoy, it could’ve been you, or worse, your brother - and you killed a man, and there’s no going back now, and that night you become Kobra Kid - kid, just like Show Pony called you that time in your first day in the zones - and you lie to yourself and you swear that you’ll never kill again. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself in the biggest clap you’ve ever seen - the biggest one you’ve ever seen since your crew died, you think, and you send a silent prayer to the witch as you fight alongside strangers - there’s dracs everywhere, more dracs than you’ve ever seen and you’re all cornered in the place just between zone three and four and the trans am is far and Ghoul is nowhere to be seen, where the hell is he, and you can’t go through this again. Your raygun fails and you swear again and again, because you can’t afford to lose, and suddenly you’re on your knees, hands clutching at your face and you scream and the blood on your hands is your own now, flashes of white-hot pain flaring through your head and hands and running down your spine  and you hear a frantic yell of Kobra, cover my back, and you’re pulled up to your feet by a pair of gloved hands and all you can see is red, red everywhere, red on yourself, red on the stranger’s head and their hands. You had never felt so much pain before. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you help someone you don’t know - and you had to take out their eye, and there’s blood, so much blood, on your clothes and your hands and you don’t know what is dye and what isn’t anymore and you feel bile biting at the back of your throat because the stench is unbearable but you need to stay strong, a killjoy never shows weakness - and you’re on the floor of the diner, talking to that person’s crew - well, less of a crew and more of one single guy, and you learn that his name is Fun Ghoul and his face is littered in scars and his smile is sharp, almost inhumanly so, and you find it unsettling, almost - and you just saved a life.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when your diner becomes for four, and your crew isn’t you and your brother anymore, and that day you become the Fabulous Four, and you know there’s no taking it back now, and soon everyone in the zones will know your name, and you’re not four fucked up kids anymore, and you’re leading a revolution - a revolution made of neon and violence against a corporation you know for a fact you can’t defeat on your own. You’re a killjoy, now, you think, and the word sounds odd coming from you, uncomfortable in your mouth. You’ll always be a kid with too many issues and streaky bleached hair to yourself, and you don’t know what to feel. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you discover yourself again, as if you were a new thing, a new person to know again and again, and you realize you never were anyone’s brother, you never were anyone’s son, anyone’s grandson, and now you’re somebody’s sibling - you’re non binary, as Show Pony had explained it to you - and you’re poison, you’re alive once again, and you’re bright, and infectious. You’re somebody, and no one can take it away from you, motherfucker, and this time it’s Ghoul, and you smile and him, and he smiles back. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re scared, and lost in ways you had never thought you’d be - you can’t see anymore from your right eye, you don’t have a right eye anymore - and you wonder if you would’ve been better off dead, lying in the sand next to your best friend, your own blood on your hands instead of hers, and you wonder why you’re not dead, you wonder how you didn’t get killed, but your life got spared instead, you wonder how a shot as fatal as that one left you standing. You pray to The Witch again and again, hoping for some clarity that will never come to you. You put an eyepatch over yourself, and you never let anyone see your wound ever again. You were on top of the world.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you fall in love, instead? Do you become a killjoy when you fall in love with Ghoul, and when his name said from your mouth isn’t Fun Ghoul anymore, but Ghoul - or even Ghoulie, for fuck’s sake and you don’t even know how he lets you get away with it - and the thought that you can love and be loved back settles in, and you’re learning, still, because you had never felt something so deeply before - love isn’t a thing in the city, and you know that, and you’re thankful once again, you’re thankful that you’re out here, away from BLI and everything it stands for. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when your crew takes a child in, because she has nowhere else to go and no one to take care of her, and you’re the only crew with a stable roof over your head and enough place for her to be and to grow, and you all look at her, and you know - you hope - that she’ll be fine with you, and you swear to protect her with everything you have - you know firsthand what children are treated like out there, the scars on your face are proof of that - no matter how much that could ever be.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you fall in love, instead? Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself falling in love with the desert, just like your first day out here, and you lie in the sand, looking up at the sky - a sky so clear you don’t even believe that it’s real, you had never seen anything like this before in the city - as you watch your crew a couple of feet away from you, sitting around a fire (you had decided to stay outside, because come on, guys, it’s beautiful out, you had said) and you watch as your sibling wraps their arm around the girl - or Girlie, as they often call her - and as Ghoul and Jet chat and you feel at peace with everything, because hey, you made it out here and you’ll never see the city again, and you’re the most alive you’ve ever been, free from the pills and the fake emotions and the bland nothingness of your old life, and now you too are a child of neon and rock n’roll, and maybe the word killjoy doesn’t feel as uncomfortable as it did before. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself in another violent fight - but no, this time it’s not a coincidence, this time it’s not just a random patrol of pigs and draculoids, this time someone is out for you and your crew - and it’s s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w/s and maybe even someone higher up, maybe an exterminator, maybe someone close to the director, and you know you can’t take them all on your own - you have Girlie to look after and Jet’s aim is still shaky and unsure - and you do the best you can, as a leader, and you barely manage to survive it, and that night you patch up wounds and swear to each other to never leave each other’s sight ever again, because it was a close call - the closest since Jet lost his eye - and your brother is clinging to you once again and so is Ghoul - Ghoulie, you remind yourself - and Jet, and Girlie and that night you all sleep together, piled up in the couple of old, lumpy mattresses you have.You wonder why or how you survived, but you learnt not to ask questions and you thank The Witch, even though you don’t believe in her - you know that Jet and Ghoul do, and you do it for them. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re barely scraping by - barely living - with an injured crew and you don’t know how long you can stay like this, and you feel as if your world is crumbling right from underneath your feet for the second time in your life. You sit next to a sleeping Kobra - he’s sitting upright, his leg is propped up on a small table, the outside of makeshift bandage on his leg barely spotted with blood - and Ghoul and Poison are sitting on the floor, cuddled up together, having one of their silent conversations, the kind that make you feel uncomfortable if you stare at them too long, the kind that make you feel like an intruder. You wonder what it would’ve been like living in the city - you had never seen it - and you let your mind wander, what if the city is better, after all? and you think back to the night you buried your friends, and the night you met ghoul, and the night you lost your eye, and you send another silent prayer out to The Witch - you know that she’s always listening - and you see Girlie approaching you from your left side - she never does it from your right side, she knows it’s a blind spot, and she thinks that you haven’t noticed but you did, and she sits next to you, squeezing into the gap between you and the armrest of the couch, and you put your arm around her, and kiss the top of her head, and it’s an i love you from her, and you think shit, maybe it really is all worth it. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you have to run, when you have to take the trans am, and squish the five of you and the little amount of things you can stuff in the trunk of the car and run, run to the outskirts of zone six - the furthest any of you had ever been - where even dr. D’d radio signal barely picks up, because you know that they - Korse and his pigs, like Ghoul had spat with venom in his voice - are following you, and you’re very much aware of the fact that you’re the only killjoys to have ever escaped from him, and you know that your face is plastered everywhere in the city, in the zones - you all had seen the “exterminate” posters - and you know that you’re someone Korse fears - that’s why he’s even after you in the first place. You can’t help to feel scared, and you watch your sibling get eaten away by worry, their face creased by the lines of a kind of worry you had never seen on them - or anyone else, to be truthful - you watch Jet play with the girl - he pretends that everything is fine with her, but you all know that the girl is smarter than you think she is - and they see Ghoul close up in their own head - he won’t talk to anyone, even Poison, and living without his jokes and inappropriate comments is odd, to say the least. You all share a look, and you all know, you all share the same thought. You might die soon, and the priority is to save the girl. That night, you all sleep huddled together once again. You’re a killjoy, now, and killjoys never give up.</p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself in another clap, and you’re fighting Korse again, and you all know you might not make it out alive - you always knew that you were going to die like this, back to back with someone else, you knew you were going to fade violently, a smoking gun in your hand, because that’s how killjoys go out, how the children of the gun go - and you grip your raygun tighter - the same green gun that was once too heavy for you - and you fight back to back with Poison - or Party, how you always preferred to call them, just like they called you Ghoulie - and you feel yourself lose accuracy, you feel yourself lose composure, strength, and you know that the rest of your crew - your family, for fuck’s sake - is feeling the same, you know that Party is losing his stance behind you. You can’t keep going for long, and running is unlikely. You fix your mask on your face, and you keep going. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you wake up in the sand - and this is too familiar, and you’re covered in somebody’s blood, and you’re lying next to Poison, they’re breathing, thankfully, their eyes open only halfway - and you see your helmet a couple of feet away from you, you see a chunk of what probably once was Ghoul’s mask - and there he is, sitting up, staring at what looks like a still-passed-out Kobra half buried in the sand - and Girlie is nowhere to be seen, what the fuck, and the worst case scenario comes into your mind but they wouldn’t, right? They wouldn’t do that to a child. They wouldn’t do that. You sit up, and you breathe, and cough from the dust in your throat, and you look over at everyone in your crew again, and again, and you pray to The Witch, and to Destroya, and to every other deity you know, over and over again, like a mantra, something to hold onto. You’re all going to die, you realize, and you pray and pray again; but while The Witch is kind, you know she won’t spare you a second time. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you go back to the place you oh-so-desperately tried to escape, instead? Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself walking into a place that you once worshipped - the BLI headquarters - to save someone that might not even be alive anymore; but they wouldn’t do that to a child, would they? And you know that you’re going to die, you feel it deep in your bones, and you’re Poison, but you’re not sure if you’re anyone anymore, because someone took your life away from you, and you’re going to make them pay until your last breath leaves your body. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you find yourself surrounded by men you don’t know, by people dressed in white, and you want to scream, you want to fight - like Ghoul had taught you - but they’re holding you still, their hands digging tight into your shoulders, and you know better than try to get yourself free, and you hope and hope and hope that someone is on their way to save you. </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you’re ten years old, and in the middle of a firefight, with no way to protect yourself, and you see your family fall right in front of your very eyes. You see Poison on the floor, sticky crimson pouring from their head, and you want to look away but you can’t because they’re your sibling, and you’re their Girlie and you see Kobra fall on the floor, and the same shade of crimson is pouring out of their middle, and you know that they’re not breathing anymore, and you wonder what went wrong because they shouldn’t have died, should they? </p><p> </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you get dragged by one of your brothers outside of the building, Ghoul right behind you, and he’s holding the door closed with his own body, and you know that he’s dead too, and you stop and look, but those same men in white are coming after after you again and you can hear Ghoul calling them pigs in your head and for a moment, a brief split of a second you think that you’re safe, you see the trans am, and Jet is still standing next to you, but his aim is off - he still hasn’t recovered, you know that well - and you see someone approaching him from his right, and before you can scream it’s all over, and he falls against the hood of the car.  </p><p>Do you become a killjoy when you get grabbed once again, this time by friendly hands - they’re Show Pony, you had seen them before - into a van, and a door closes, leaving the last chapter of your life behind it; and you wonder where it all went wrong. You say I love you, and you hope that they can all hear you. </p><p>How does someone become a killjoy, anyway?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so, this was my work for march 22 (2020) and for the #internationalblackparade2020 on tumblr! i hope you liked this, and i'm sorry if you didn't, i tried my best. </p><p>a special thanks goes to the lovely @come-liewithmybones on tumblr for helping me deal with this thing and proofreading it for me.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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